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Though the story premise is cute (we’ve got a little bug who starts yawning, and soon it’s catching!), the story ends up dragging. It’s got the lyrical rhymes you expect, the made-up words and names that are wonderfully alliterative (Van Vleck and his cousins, etc)… but it just goes on for a little too long, and doesn’t have quite the charm that other Seuss books have. Definitely one of my least favorite Seuss offerings, which is a shame, because topic-wise, what a perfect book to help put your toddler to bed!

This is definitely not my favorite Dr. Seuss… but it’s something your toddler will enjoy. If your child can already read, this is probably a great book for them to test out a series of nonsensical (but whimsically so, since it’s Dr. Seuss) words. If, however, you’re still reading to your toddler — be forewarned, these are terribly different tongue twisters! Each rhyme is its own little story, which makes it harder to get into the normal rhythm of a full-fledged story, but, the stories all sound fun when read aloud, and your toddler will laugh at your mistakes and your successes alike!

I think the Dr. Seuss books are, you know, famous for a reason! Though a lot of the text is nonsensical, the pictures are engaging and bright and and text is the silly wordings that make it enjoyable for the reader and the toddler (and some of the phrases, like “barber, baby, bubbles and a bumblebee…” will become endlessly-repeated ones). I would definitely buy the board book version so that your toddler can drag it around everywhere, repeating “baby, or Aunt Annie’s alligator…”

I never read the Dr. Seuss books as a child, and I have to say I never understood them as an adult (with books like Dr. Seuss’s ABC, I couldn’t help wondering, why elephant? why this “m” word? where’s the logic?) Then I became a mother. This book is fun to read and totally repeatable, and it keeps your young toddler entertained. It’s total nonsense, so it’s not one of those books that has a deep moral lesson or meaning, but there’s something so ridiculous about the rhymes (like “there’s a wasket in your basket” or “there’s a zlock behind the clock”) that you can’t help but put on your theatre voice and be entertained along with your clapping toddler. There’s a certain rhythm to the words, and the fact that it’s a mostly indestructible board book and bright enough to keep even a young toddler’s attention, make this well worth owning.